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Mais non! Parisian chattering class threatened with exile | |
2007-10-29 | |
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The row arose after the college announced it would leave Boulevard Raspail in the well-heeled 6th district for an American-style campus – nicknamed Berkeley-on-Seine – in what is an industrial estate in Aubervilliers. The move was brought forward from 2012 after the Raspail building became unsafe because of asbestos. The academics said a delegation had visited the new site in Aubervilliers and was “appalled”. “No inhabitants. No green spaces. Practically no trees. No businesses. No cafés. No restaurants,” they said in a blog. Quelle Horreur! Philosophers, historians, economists and sociologists have lined up to denounce the suburb as a cultural desert, far removed from the Parisian café society they have known since the days of Jean-Paul Sartre. They say Seine-Saint-Denis – infamous as the centre of the 2005 race riots in France and known from its registration number, 93, as le Neuf-Trois – is a “zone lacking all the necessary tools for intellectual work”. They claim the EHESS has fallen victim to a Machiavellian plot hatched by President Sarkozy’s centre-right Government in an attempt to dismantle an antiEstablishment bastion. The college is famed for producing some of France’s greatest left-wing thinkers, such as Pierre Bourdieu, the sociologist, and for its role in the May 1968 student protests in Paris. Some lecturers have poured scorn on the campaign. Francis Chateau-raynaud, director of the Pragmatic and Reflective Sociology Group, said: “The well-to-do people of the 6th district don’t want to move their bums and they are scared of le 93.” Supporters of the relocation say that it could help to bridge the gulf separating Paris’s white and wealthy city centre from a periphery marked by immigration, unemployment and violence. Catherine Sautter, a member of the college administration, said: “Maybe our intellectuals are not that intelligent at the end of the day.” | |
Posted by:Seafarious |
#15 Lulz. 3rd Assistant Undersecretary of Agricultuere to distraught minion.... Why are you crying? My farmer died! |
Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-10-29 17:01 |
#14 This gave me no small amount of glee. More than say putting Berkeley in the middle of Oakland, this is like putting Berkeley in the middle of South Central LA. |
Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-10-29 16:43 |
#13 Methinks more than a few will be mugged, assaulted and raped by reality. You say that like it's a bad thing. |
Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-29 13:34 |
#12 Methinks more than a few will be mugged, assaulted and raped by reality. |
Posted by: ed 2007-10-29 11:25 |
#11 Kinda like moving the UN to...Somalia. |
Posted by: tu3031 2007-10-29 11:12 |
#10 Sounds about right for the frogs - Berkeley-in-sane. |
Posted by: Glolurong Jones1696 2007-10-29 10:58 |
#9 No businesses. No cafés. No restaurants Non-marxist economists know that businesses, cafes and restaurants follow the money, not vice versa. Build a campus and they will come. |
Posted by: DoDo 2007-10-29 10:53 |
#8 I empathize. Who wants to go into a Algerian/Morrocan area where the closest thing to braised ribs ala Monsiuer Henri is a torched Peugout? |
Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-10-29 10:02 |
#7 Words of advice I share with the international students who visit our home: If you want to get a good cross-section of American opinion, you will have to get off campus. |
Posted by: mom 2007-10-29 09:52 |
#6 Going to be hard to warp their students empty little heads over the "nobility" of the underclasses when their students have to actually live and walk in bad neighborhoods. In the same vain, I nominate the: Dept. of HUD to move to East St. Louis Dept. of Justice to New Orleans Dept. of Agriculture to downtown Manhattan Dept. of Labor to Detroit Dept. of Education to Kansas City MO |
Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-10-29 09:27 |
#5 Students should remember to park their cars elsewhere; November is Carbecue time in Paristan. |
Posted by: McZoid 2007-10-29 04:39 |
#4 but I thought they loved and championed the underclasses. Going to be hard to warp their students empty little heads over the "nobility" of the underclasses when their students have to actually live and walk in bad neighborhoods. On the bright side, it will be good business for those neighborhoods. No really. It will. |
Posted by: Unutle McGurque8861 2007-10-29 04:37 |
#3 They claim the EHESS has fallen victim to a Machiavellian plot hatched by President SarkozyÂ’s centre-right Government in an attempt to dismantle an antiEstablishment bastion. Is Sarkozy that good? |
Posted by: Ulailing Scourge of the Faith3257 2007-10-29 02:31 |
#2 Of course, the suburbs are completely suitable places for those brown people. |
Posted by: gromky 2007-10-29 01:27 |
#1 ...“zone lacking all the necessary tools for intellectual work”. Describes the space between their ears perfectly... |
Posted by: PBMcL 2007-10-29 00:29 |